Installing Oracle C++ Call Interface

OCCI is installed as part of the Oracle Database. To determine additional configuration requirements, you should refer to the Oracle Database Installation Guide and the Oracle Database Client Installation Guide that is specific to your platform.

Upgrading Considerations

To use the new features available in this release, you must recompile and relink all OCCI applications, including classes generated through the Object Type Translator Utility, when upgrading from an earlier Oracle Client release.

Determining the Oracle Database Versions

When an application uses several separate code paths with different server versions or client patchsets, you can verify these options both during compilation and at run time.

Determining the Oracle Client Version During Compilation

The OCCI header files define OCCI_MAJOR_VERSION and OCCI_MINOR_VERSION macros. Example 2-1 illustrates one way to use these macros:

Example 2-1 How to Determine the Major Client Version and Set Performance Features

Determining the Oracle Client and Server Versions at Run Time

Instant Client

The Instant Client feature makes it extremely easy and fast to deploy OCCI based customer application by eliminating the need for ORACLE_HOME. The storage space requirements are an additional benefit; Instant Client shared libraries occupy about one-fourth of the disk space required for a full client installation.

Benefits of Instant Client

Installation involves copying only four files.

Storage space requirement for the client is minimal

No loss of functionality or performance exists for deployed applications

Simplified packaging with ISV applications

The OCCI Instant Client capability simplifies OCCI installation. Even though OCCI is independent of ORACLE_HOME setting in the Instant Client mode, applications that rely on ORACLE_HOME settings can continue operation by setting it to the appropriate value. The activation of the Instant Client mode is only dependent on the ability to load the Instant Client data shared library. In particular, this feature allows interoperability with Oracle applications that use ORACLE_HOME for their data, but use a newer release of Oracle Client.

Installing Instant Client

OCCI requires only four shared libraries (or dynamic link libraries, as they are called on some operating systems) to be loaded by the dynamic loader of the operating system. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) library names are used; the number part of library names changes to remain consistent with future release numbers.

OCI Instant Client Data Shared Library (libociei.so on Linux and UNIX and oraociei11.dll on Windows); correct installation of this file determines if you are operating in Instant Client mode

Client Code Library (libclntsh.so.11.1 on Linux and UNIX and oci.dll on Windows)

Security Library (libnnz11.so on Linux and UNIX and orannzsbb11.dll on Windows)

OCCI Library (libocci.so.11.1 on Linux and UNIX and oraocci11.dll on Windows)

Oracle Technology Network

The Instant Client libraries are also available on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Web site at:

If these four libraries are accessible through the directory on the Operating System Library Path variable (LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Linux and UNIX, and PATH on Windows), then OCCI operates in the Instant Client mode. In this mode, there is no dependency on ORACLE_HOME and none of the other code and data files provided in ORACLE_HOME are needed by OCCI.

If you are installing Instant Client from the Oracle Technology Network,

Download and install the Instant Client libraries to an empty directory, such as instantclient_11_2.

Set the operating system shared library path environment variable (LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Linux and UNIX and PATH on Windows) to the directory used in step 1, instantclient_11_2.

Instant Client SDK

Instant Client can also be downloaded as an SDK package. The SDK contains all necessary header files and a makefile for developing OCCI applications in an Instant Client environment. Once developed, these applications can be deployed in any client environment. The SDK has these additional features:

It contains C++ demonstration programs.

It includes libraries required to link applications on Windows, and a Make.bat file is provided to build demos.

The Makefile demo.mk is provided to build the demos for Linux and UNIX. The instantclient_11_2 directory must be on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH before linking the application. These programs require symbolic links for the Client Code Library and the OCCI library, libclntsh.so and libocci.so respectively, in the instantclient_11_2 directory. The demo Makefile, demo.mk, generates these before the link step. These symbolic links can also be created in a shell script:

The SDK also contains the Object Type Translator (OTT) utility and its classes to generate the application header files.

Complete Client Installation

If you performed a complete client installation by choosing the Admin option,

On Linux or UNIX platforms, the libociei.so library can be copied from the $ORACLE_HOME/instantclient directory. All the other libraries can be copied from the $ORACLE_HOME/lib directory in a full Oracle installation.

On Windows, the oraociei11.dll library can be copied from the ORACLE_HOME\instantclient directory. All other Windows libraries can be copied from the ORACLE_HOME\bin directory. To use the Microsoft ODBC and OLEDB driver, ociw32.dll must also be copied from ORACLE_HOME\bin.

Oracle Universal Installer

If you did not install the database, you can install these libraries by choosing the Instant Client option from the Oracle Universal Installer. After completing these steps, you can begin running OCCI applications.

Install the Instant Client shared libraries to a directory such as instantclient_11_2.

Set the operating system shared library path environment variable to the directory from step 1. For example, on Linux or UNIX, set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to instantclient_11_2. On Windows, set PATH to locate the instantclient_11_2 directory.

Instant Client CD

You can also install Instant Client from the Instant Client CD. You must install Instant Client either in an empty directory or on a different system.

There should be only one set of Oracle libraries on the operating system Library Path variable; if you have several directories or copies of Instant Client libraries, only one directory should be on the operating system Library Path.

Similarly, if you also have an installation on an ORACLE_HOME of the same system, do not place both the ORACLE_HOME/lib and Instant Client directory on the operating system Library Path, regardless of the order in which they appear on the Library Path. Only one of ORACLE_HOME/lib directory (for non-Instant Client operation) or Instant Client directory (for Instant Client operation) should be on the operating system Library Path variable.

Using Instant Client

The Instant Client feature is designed for running production applications. For development, use either the Instant Client SDK or a full installation to access OCCI header files, makefiles, demonstration programs, and so on.

Patching Instant Client Shared Libraries on UNIX

This feature is not available on Windows platforms.

Because Instant Client is primarily a deployment feature, one of its design objectives is to reduce the number and size of necessary files. Therefore, Instant Client deployment does not include all files for patching shared libraries. You should use the OPATCH utility on an ORACLE_HOME-based full client to patch the Instant Client shared libraries. The OPATCH utility stores the patching information of the ORACLE_HOME installation in libclntsh.so.11.1 for Linux and UNIX. This information can be retrieved using the genezi utility:

genezi -v

If the genezi utility is not installed on the system that deploys Instant Client, you can copy it from the ORACLE_HOME/bin directory of the ORACLE_HOME system.

After applying the patch in an ORACLE_HOME environment, copy the files listed in"Installing Instant Client" to the Instant Client directory. Instead of copying individual files, you can generate Instant Client *.zip files, as described in "Regenerating the Data Shared Library and Zip Files". Then, instead of copying individual files, you can instead copy the zip files to the target system and unzip them.

Regenerating the Data Shared Library and Zip Files

This feature is not available on Windows platforms.

The Instant Client Data Shared Library, libociei.so, can be regenerated in a Client Admin Install of ORACLE_HOME. Executing Example 2-2 creates a new libociei.so file based on current file in ORACLE_HOME and place it in the ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/install/instantclient directory; the make target ilibociei generates libociei.so.

This location of the regenerated data shared library, libociei.so, is different from the original location of ORACLE_HOME/instantclient

As a connection name that is resolved through Directory Naming when the site is configured for LDAP server discovery.

As an entry in the tnsnames.ora file.

If the TNS_ADMIN environment variable is not set, and TNSNAMES entries such as inst1 are used, then the ORACLE_HOME variable must be set and the configuration files are expected to be in the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory.

Naming methods that require TNS_ADMIN to locate configuration files continue to work if the TNS_ADMIN environment variable is set.

The ORACLE_HOME variable in this case is only used for locating Oracle Net configuration files, and no other component of OCCI Client Code Library uses the value of ORACLE_HOME.

The empty connectString parameter of createConnection() is supported by setting the environment variable (TWO_TASK on Linux and UNIX, and LOCAL on Windows) to one of the values described earlier.

Environment Variables for OCCI Instant Client

The ORACLE_HOME environment variable no longer determines the location of Globalization Support, CORE, and error message files. An OCCI-only application should not require ORACLE_HOME to be set. However, if it is set, it does not have an impact on OCCI's operation. OCCI always obtains its data from the Data Shared Library. If the Data Shared Library is not available, only then is ORACLE_HOME used and a full client installation is assumed. When set, ORACLE_HOME should be a valid operating system path name that identifies a directory.

Environment variables ORA_NLS33, ORA_NLS32, and ORA_NLS are ignored in the Instant Client mode.

In the Instant Client mode, if the ORA_TZFILE variable is not set, then the larger, default, timezlrg_n.dat file (where n is the version number of the file) from the Data Shared Library is used. If using the smaller timezone_n.dat file from the Data Shared Library, then set the ORA_TZFILE environment variable to the name of the file without any absolute or relative path names, as shown in Example 2-3.

Example 2-3 How to set the ORA_TZFILE Environment Variable

On Linux and UNIX:

setenv ORA_TZFILE timezone_n.dat

On Windows:

set ORA_TZFILE timezone_n.dat

If OCCI is not operating in the Instant Client mode because the Data Shared Library is not available, the ORA_TZFILE variable, if set, names a complete path name.

If TNSNAMES entries are used, then TNS_ADMIN directory must contain the TNSNAMES configuration files. If TNS_ADMIN is not set, the ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory must contain Oracle Net Services configuration files.

Instant Client Light (English)

Instant Client Light (English) further reduces installation space requirements of the client installation over Instant Client by another 63 MB. Specifically, the installation of the Instant Client Light (English) shared library, libociicus.so on Linux and UNIX and oraociicus11.dll for Windows, occupies 4 MB on UNIX platforms, when the full Instant Client shared library, libociei.so, occupies 67 MB of disk space.

Instant Client Light (English), as the name implies, is geared toward applications that require English-only error messages and use either US7ASCII, WE8DEC, or a Unicode characterset. Instant Client Light (English) also has no restrictions on the TERRITORY field of the NLS_LANG setting. As a result, applications that meet these characterset and territory criteria can significantly reduce its footprint if they operate in the Instant Client Light (English) environment.

Globalization Settings for Instant Client Light (English)

Instant Client Light (English) supports the following character sets:

Single-byte character sets include US7ASCII, WE8DEC, WE8MSWIN1252, and WE8ISO8859P1.

Unicode character sets include UTF8, AL16UTF16, and AL32UTF8.

Instant Client Light (English) returns an error message if the application attempts to use a character set or a national character set not listed here, either on the client or on the database. The possible error messages, listed here, are only available in English:

Using Instant Client Light (English)

To determine whether to operate in the Instant Client mode, OCCI applications look for the Data Shared Library on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH for Linux and UNIX and PATH on Windows. If this library is not found, OCCI attempts to load the Instant Client Light (English) Data Shared Library, libociicus.so for Linux and UNIX and oraociicus11.dll on Windows. If neither is found, a full ORACLE_HOME installation is assumed.

Installing Instant Client Light (English)

Note that all Instant Client and Instant Client Light (English) files should always be copied or installed into an empty directory to ensure that there are no incompatible binaries in the final installation

Oracle Technology Network Download

When installing Instant Client Light (English) from Oracle Technology Network (OTN), download and unzip the basiclite.zip package instead of the usual basic.zip package. You must ensure that the instantclient_11_2 directory is empty before unzipping the libraries. The downloadable package is at the following URL on OTN:

Client Admin Install

Instead of copying the Instant Client Data Shared Library from the ORACLE_HOME/instantclient directory, use the Instant Client Light (English) Data Shared Library, libociicus.so for Linux and UNIX and oraociicus11.dlll for Windows, from the ORACLE_HOME/instantclient/light directory. In other words, the Instant Client directory on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH for Linux and UNIX and PATH for Windows should contain the smaller Instant Client Light (English) Data Shared Libraries.

Oracle Universal Installer

If the Instant Client option is selected from the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), the full Instant Client is installed by default, but the libraries for Instant Client Light (English) are also installed. To operate in Instant Client Light (English) mode, the Instant Client Light (English) Data Shared Library must replace the Instant Client library. Therefore, you must place libociicus.so on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH for Linux and UNIX, and oraociicus11.dll on the PATH for Windows. This design ensures that the Instant Client Light (English) is not enabled by default.

The Instant Client Light (English) Data Shared Library is initially placed in the ORACLE_HOME/instantclient/light directory. You must move it to the base directory of the installation, ORACLE_HOME/instantclient, and remove the Instant Client Data Shared Library in that directory.

If the OUI has installed the Instant Client in my_oraic_11_1 directory on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, then the following commands would ensure operation in the Instant Client Light (English) mode. Note that to avoid use of incompatible binary files, all Instant Client files should be copied and installed in an empty directory.